Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (23803)	11/1/2007 12:38:53 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Pedestrian Down Democrats who are nervous about having Hillary Clinton as their nominee had their fears confirmed last night. Mrs. Clinton finally stumbled in her seventh Democratic debate once the other candidates decided to chew on her. Mrs. Clinton responded to the criticism by retreating to her briefing books, giving rehearsed answers to questions in a too loud, slightly shrill voice. She was pummeled for not releasing White House records kept by the National Archives that would shine light on her claim to be the most experienced candidate based on her service as First Lady. But her worst moment came when she gave a bizarre answer to a question about a proposal by her fellow New York Democrat, Governor Eliot Spitzer, to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Pressed by Tim Russert about whether she still favors his plan, as she told a New Hampshire paper, she launched into a long defense of it. Then, after Senator Chris Dodd attacked her stance, she interrupted and said: "I did not say that it should be done." NBC's Tim Russert, one of the debate moderators, jumped in and said to her: "You told [a] New Hampshire paper that it made a lot of sense. Do you support his plan?"(1) "You know, Tim," Mrs. Clinton replied, "this is where everybody plays 'gotcha.'" John Edwards quickly pounced: "Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes. America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent, who will be straight with them." Chris Matthews of MSNBC concluded that Mrs. Clinton had put herself in a box: "She will have to come out against giving . . . people in the country illegally a driver's license. It doesn't sell." I'm not so sure. Mrs. Clinton has always had a soft spot for measures that many election officials say compromise the integrity of the ballot box. She sponsored a major bill to strip states of their right to bar felons from voting, a right many legal scholars say is enshrined in the Constitution. Governor Spitzer's plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal aliens is equally controversial, in part because anyone with such a license could probably vote in elections with impunity. In order to register to vote, a person must sign an affidavit stating that he or she is an American citizen. "You assume that people don't lie, and that's what the form says," state Board of Elections spokesman Lee Daghlian told the New York Post. "It would be [tough to catch] if someone wanted to . . . get a number of people registered [to vote] who aren't citizens and went ahead and got them driver's licenses." Mr. Daghlian conceded that "nobody checks it" to determine if someone registering to vote is truly eligible. Because of the federal Motor Voter Law, everyone getting a driver's license in New York is automatically handed a voter registration form. With New York being home to upwards of 500,000 illegal aliens, the potential for mischief is great, especially since the Spitzer administration has reversed a policy that would have barred the Department of Motor Vehicles from handing out motor-voter registration forms to anyone without a Social Security number. Politically speaking, supporting driver's licenses for illegal aliens is an untenable position in a general election. But in the Democratic primaries, the issue is a litmus test for many liberal and immigrant groups backing Mrs. Clinton's candidacy. That helps explain her bizarre obfuscations in last night's debate, when she showed the first chink in her armor, her first failure to square her appeals to the liberal base with attempts to portray herself as a moderate. "If she loses the nomination, [last night's debate] will go down in history as the first step to her defeat -- no fatal 'Dean Scream' catastrophe, but far from her finest moment, to say the least," concluded Time magazine liberal political handicapper Mark Halperin(2). opinionjournal.com (1)Today on his radio show Rush Limbaugh took credit for analyzing the debacle of New York Governor Spitzer changing the rules to allow illegal immigrants to easily obtain drivers licenses without having to prove citizenship. (2)Recall that Mark Halperin was the ABC manager that circulated a letter during the 2004 election mandating pro Kerry bias on his network.